Motor sport journalism

[Paceracing]

Is it me or do you sometimes read a report in a motor sport publication and find yourself asking "Did that particular journalist actually watch that race, or just make something up based on the results?". I'm not going to point the finger at any particular individuals, (although one name does spring to mind for their consistantly feeble and innacurate reporting) but from a couple of conversations with different people lately, (including non-competitors) I know i'm not alone in thinking this.
In the defence of good journalism, I recently spoke to a well known club motor sport journalist whom I feel always presents a good, informed, balanced and fair report of events, so i'm not making generalisations.
I don't have an axe to grind, but I just feel that competitors, organisers and teams put in a huge ammount of effort and it would be nice to see that recognised. At the end of the day, we are the people who purchase these publications and a bit of enthusiasm in some of the reports I read wouldn't go amiss.

What do you think? Am I being naive?

Jason.

[Ian Sowman]

I could at this point go on about word counts and such like as I often do on these occasions, but I won't.

There's a lot of reasons why the perspective of the reporter might differ to that of a competitor, spectator, or marshal: for example where you were watching the race from. And although sometimes there might be great scraps down the order inevitably we have to concentrate on those at the front, who might be playing follow my leader. We are all enthusiasts though, and we try to convey that. On the other hand, if a race is rubbish we won't pretend it wasn't.

[Peter Mallett]

Originally posted by Ian Sowman
We are all enthusiasts though, and we try to convey that. On the other hand, if a race is rubbish we won't pretend it wasn't.

Absolutely and we'd all like to be Gerry Marshall but we only get a few times in our amateur careers to be as good (at our particular levels) so whilst a race might be complete "pants" there may have been some merit in it yet a journo will do what you say Ian, and rubbish the efforts of everybody.

It just goes to show that your viewpoint is the corporate view. If it ain't F1 its worthless.

I recall being in a processional race at Thruxton when Marcus Pye reported something like "Driver x won the race easily but Graham Scarborough, Malc Best and Ian Drew (I think) gave us a great demonstration of sideways motoring in their Capris for third fourth and fifth.

The point is that his report stuck in my mind because he'd obviously been watching, and whilst being economical with the word count, he conveyed an important part of the race. (The fact that I was there in seventh with a collapsed rear damper missed him completely.

[Paceracing]

Ian, your points make a lot of sense. A couple of things recently sparked me off though which caused me to wonder if the journo reporting actually watched the race. One being a long editorial on a fairly mediocre race when a race much later in the day which was far more interesting / entertaining only got a single sentence mentioning podium places.

Jason.

[Kicking-back]

Lets hope John McIlroy drops by...

[Ian Sowman]

Peter, I wasn't meaning to imply that we would rubbish the efforts of anyone. We don't (or certainly not intentionally). I'm sure you'd agree that in a nine race programme if, say, three races are excellent to watch, three are good and three are less than exciting (it does happen) we should give an appropriate amount of prominence to each.

At the end of the day we are there to report on a sporting event. If an England football match is a goalless farce with Sven making substitutions left, right and centre you'd expect a report in the next day's paper to be critical - or at least not to make it out to be something it wasn't. Exactly the same applies here.

As for watching the races: I try to watch all of them and vary rarely miss a lap. Sometimes it is important to follow up on a story from another or get quotes from drivers before they go home.

And as for your point Paceracing: Without knowing which event you're on about it is difficult to say. If it was on a Bank Holiday Monday it would be reasonably normal for us to write more about the early races and less on the later ones so we can hit our deadlines at 6pm so you can read them on Wednesday.

[Mags]

One of the worst problems, too is if you don't get the pleasure of watching the entire race, and have to shoot it as well, you miss things. And if you are not in a media centre with good coverage, you are hooped.

[Peter Mallett]

Originally posted by Ian Sowman
Peter, I wasn't meaning to imply that we would rubbish the efforts of anyone. We don't (or certainly not intentionally). I'm sure you'd agree that in a nine race programme if, say, three races are excellent to watch, three are good and three are less than exciting (it does happen) we should give an appropriate amount of prominence to each.

Perhaps "rubbish" was too strong. My apologies. However the point is that you either don't want or don't have space to do an "event" justice. The people out there may not be rubbing bumpers or wheels but they are trying on mostly their own funds so some encouragement (rather than expecting them to be like Jason Plato or JPM) wouldn't go amiss.

Originally posted by Ian Sowman
At the end of the day we are there to report on a sporting event. If an England football match is a goalless farce with Sven making substitutions left, right and centre you'd expect a report in the next day's paper to be critical - or at least not to make it out to be something it wasn't. Exactly the same applies here.

Agreed but as you say there would be a report. You wouldn't ignore it completely. The BARC meeting at Mallory on the 25th April didn't even happen according to Autosport.

Originally posted by Ian Sowman
As for watching the races: I try to watch all of them and vary rarely miss a lap. Sometimes it is important to follow up on a story from another or get quotes from drivers before they go home.

All well and good but then you may not get the chance to report those quotes.

[carrera]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Peter Mallett



Agreed but as you say there would be a report. You wouldn't ignore it completely. The BARC meeting at Mallory on the 25th April didn't even happen according to Autosport.




Sorry Peter, but there is a report in AS April 29 p103.

40% of a page in fact, 62.5% of this area is results and two pics leaving 15% of a page to give a report. I'll take my hat off to Peter Scherer (reporter) that he got so much into such a small space.

[Peter Mallett]

Apologies. I picked it up, flicked through it, tried to find the report, and meant to bring it with me but forgot..

[DAVID PATERSON]

Years ago, I took part in a race at my local track and a few weeks later bought a copy of Australia's leading Motorsport magazine to read the report on that meeting. On close inspection the report was written by a regular contributor who had also written a report on a meeting which took place at his local track the same day. The two tracks are 5000km apart!

[DaveStyles]

Would it solve it this problem if someone who has a vested interest in the race did the report ?

At every race of 25 drivers, there are at least 50 friends/Wives/Girlfriends/Husbands watching the race.

Wouldn't it be easier for all concerned if one of these people did the write up ? Then the motorsport journalists could concentrate on BTCC, Jason Plato and F1, AND... Club racing would get good writeups.

I'll be racing with TSSC in the the TR Register championship shortly, they already publish a race report in their club magazine of every race. I'm sure no one would have any objections to the likes of Autosport lifting it... (or the key points).. but this doesn't happen.

And I can't see why it would be a bad thing ?

[ActiveMS]

DaveStyles idea is rather good.
Perhaps a neutral person (if they exist) within a series/championship should write regular race reports and forward to a journo to edit in order to include as much as possible (within reason and word counts) in the published article.

Perhaps this would entice mags like AutoSport to include more coverage of club events.

[Ian Sowman]

And all by 9am on the Monday morning as well...

[ActiveMS]

.... tis possible, with the help of a laptop, so could be typed up almost immediately. This does require a certain amount of motivation, but hey, Im sure there would be willing participants. Would any journo's entertain the idea?

[ensign14]

Originally posted by DaveStyles
Would it solve it this problem if someone who has a vested interest in the race did the report ?

...

And I can't see why it would be a bad thing ?

You could end up with a report of "Harry Hotshoe showed he was the class of the field in the pre-78 FFord class with a stunning drive to 14th place. Harry overtook a car with consummate ease and obeyed the yellow flags at all times. Some shark that tried to get off with me spun, ha ha. The top 13 all cheated. -Mrs Hotshoe"

Or someone could name drop their sponsor at all times.

Or you could have something similar to the near-legendary correspondence in Autosport back in the early 70s when Mike Beuttler's and Dave Morgan's mums had a feud in the letters pages...maybe that's actually a Good Thing.

[ss_collins]

letters pages feuds are fun - there was a good one recently between a K.Lay and the MAC over walsh classes

[DaveStyles]

Originally posted by ensign14
You could end up with a report of "Harry Hotshoe showed he was the class of the field in the pre-78 FFord class with a stunning drive to 14th place. Harry overtook a car with consummate ease and obeyed the yellow flags at all times. Some shark that tried to get off with me spun, ha ha. The top 13 all cheated. -Mrs Hotshoe"

Or someone could name drop their sponsor at all times.

Or you could have something similar to the near-legendary correspondence in Autosport back in the early 70s when Mike Beuttler's and Dave Morgan's mums had a feud in the letters pages...maybe that's actually a Good Thing.

I forget that not ALL racing series are as friendly as the Triumph people ! It'd be a shame if you really did get a report like that quoted above, and it'd tell you more about those racing in the series, than the report would tell you about the race.

So maybe it wouldn't work for all club racing, and would be a failed experiment in some cases.

The point is though that I'm not saying that any report should be used verbatim without a skim by a journalist, or that it would work for ALL series, but I am saying that in some cases you might get a more worthwhile report.

In my Karting days I used to race at Nuthampstead... a small track that the RAC did manage to kill off eventually after many attempts.
Even though I raced, I also did the writeups which were submitted to the Karting Magazine, there is no other way that the meetings at that track would have got coverage, and the Karting Magazine was happy to receive the copy.

I just thought that it could work for club racing too.

For instance,... I'm planning on going to Rockingham next weekend as a spectator... I wouldn't mind doing a report (FOR FREE!).. but.. sadly... there's no market for such a thing.

Is it because they aren't club racing magazines ? They are for reporting BTCC, F1 and the likes..

[Daf_Loz]

If a journalist puts their name to a report then they have to be sure that what he's printing is accurate, unbiased and is their work.

However easy it seems, writing a good race report takes quite a bit of skill and no matter how enthusiastic you are, you'd soon get bored of doing it if there wasn't some added incentive. A journalist would have to rely on the third party to actually watch the whole race, speak to the drivers, look at lap charts and knock up an accurate report in a very small time frame. They would need modem access to send it to the journo and he would then have to verify everything. If that third party decided that he was doing it for free, wasn't actually enjoying the race because of being stuck in the media centre and decided to bin it - where would that leave the journo? With the sack from his editor.

That's exactly why journalists, whether employed or freelance are at the races. They're paid for their experience, reliability and accuracy. They have to put their name to the bottom of the page to show it's their work and they take responsibility for it (both quality and accuracy) and the editor then seals that with his approval as well.

I've seen many a good report written from a lap chart, driver interviews and talking to the race officials/series organisers without even seeing the largest part of the race.

If you really want to help and you work or are associated with a series then take on a PR role. Find out who the journalist is that day, provide information sheets on all the drivers, race previews, and introduce the journo to the drivers after the race if he has time - it'll make their life a lot easier and it might just help your column inches.

[Ian Sowman]

Well said Daf_Loz. And on another point if you want to write a report, why not get in touch with MN and Autosport. They're always looking out for new contributors.

[diz]

Originally posted by DaveStyles
Would it solve it this problem if someone who has a vested interest in the race did the report ?

Ian Sowman is being far too modest in his replies on this thread. He does have a great interest [although not vested] in all things FF1600. Take a look at www.clubff1600.co.uk and see the quality and depth of reports that he and Matt Beer and others submit. Same day race reports and practice reports [before the race has even started] complete with photos have been the norm in this, new for 2004, website. Well done Ian and Matt.

[ActiveMS]

Daf_Loz,
Good reply, thanks for the insight. Makes sense, will hopefully be chasing the journo's for the rest of the season then and provide as much info as they want/require.

[blue nose]

The best race reports I have read come from the NW championship leader David Bailey he should be a reporter as he quotes what happens right through the field and not just the top end also what he says is informative and right well done Dave.

[Mags]

Originally posted by ActiveMS
Daf_Loz,
Good reply, thanks for the insight. Makes sense, will hopefully be chasing the journo's for the rest of the season then and provide as much info as they want/require.

GOOD. Want to chase ME this weekend??